


Arrow

by Bluejay141519



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Also Clint and Tony should not be allowed to interact with each out ever again, Angst, Crack, Fuck Civil War btw, Gen, Humor, Hurt Clint, Sam is protective of his kitchen, Steve is Innocent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 15:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay141519/pseuds/Bluejay141519
Summary: "Right, right.” Tonys says over Sam’s indignant ‘you left the stove on?!’. “Let me just explain that to these mutant ladybugs. Um, excuse me? OH BUG GODDESS?!” He yells. “Would you mind going home?! For like ten minutes?! Birdbrain hasn’t eaten his breakfast ye- oof!”...“Clint, dear?”“Yes, honey?”“They said no.”“Damn.”Or the one where Clints breakfast is ruined, and Tony is a little shit.





	Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Fair warning, I do not normally whump Clint, and I usually write in first person. But this if for the fic exchange so:
> 
> Teeelsie-posts, I do hope you enjoy.

“ _ Why  _ for the love of all that’s holy in this universe, do all aliens that invade earth have to be uglier than your grandfather's ballsack?!”

 

“Wow.” Comments Natasha, who’s standing next to him on the street, firing bullets off from behind what was a mercedes. “That was pretty restrained there Clint, you feeling alright?”

 

“Listen hear you Russian psychopath, I was really looking forward to Sam’s breakfast this morning - you know that thing he only does like once a millenia - and my pancakes are still sitting as sorry looking batter next to a stove that may or may not still be on. Either I murder every single one of these fucking cockroaches in the next twenty minutes, or every single one of you is going to be buying me a coffee, pizza, and sandwiches every day for the rest of your sorry lives. I’m  _ hungry _ motherfuckers, and this is beyond inconvenient.”

 

“Right, right.” Tonys says over Sam’s indignant ‘ _ you left the stove on?!’ _ . “Let me just explain that to these mutant ladybugs. Um, excuse me? OH BUG GODDESS?!” He yells. “Would you mind going home?! For like ten minutes?! Birdbrain hasn’t eaten his breakfast ye-  _ oof!” _

 

“You good there metalhead?” Clint calls, fingers releasing an arrow even as he stares at the general direction Tony was supposed to be in. There’s a groan over the com.

 

“Clint, dear?”

 

“Yes, honey?”

 

“They said no.”

 

“Damn.”

 

…

 

The creatures popped up in middle of upstate New York. The Avengers were less than two minutes to the first sitting when another major alert blinked onto the quinjets computer screen - this one in Boston.

 

“Well, damn. Not only do these things have zero respect to my saturday mornings, but they also have the audacity to attack the home of my favorite penthouse.” Tony snaps, then turned to Steve. “How do you wanna do this?”

 

“Split it.” The Captain had ordered. “Tony, take Clint, Same go with them and take Widow. We’ll take the quinjet to Boston.”

 

“Star spangled man with a plan, never disappoints. Come on Legolas. Hope you wore your airtight diapers today, there’s gonna be a bit of a draft.” And then Clint had opened the bay door, given the controls to Steve, and clung for dear life to Iron Man as he flew to the site.

 

Simple orders. Shouldn’t have been that hard. Except you know, these things had hard exoskeletons, looked like a lady bug bred with a wasp, and were the size of a car.

 

“ _Split up.”_ Hawkeye snarls from his position on the back of one of the damn things (they oozed too, that was a bonus) where his bow was currently caught around the stinger. “ _It’ll be fine, I’m Mr. super soldier captain america I can jump through a thirty story window land on my face and be just fine, hahaha look at me._ God damn it!” He yells as he finally rips the long, pointed appendage from its owner. There’s a sharp screech from the thing, before it goes limp underneath him. 

 

The street around him is deserted, Natasha having run off at one point to corral another random group that was trying to escape into the trees. All that surrounds the archer is dead bugs, limbs of bugs, eyes of bugs, arrows, bug guts, some more arrows, and shredded membrane.

 

Oh yeah. Bonus bonus points, these things could fly. Hence, Tony and Sam getting their asses handed to them in the sky.

 

“New development.” Clint pants, dropping off the thing and raises his hands and bow to make a face at. “This goo smells like the worst fart you could imagine. Like. You cut these things, and you open a can of pure ‘ _ ripped ass after eating Tony’s omelets _ ’.”

 

“ _ Wonderful _ to know, Barton. Any other information that could possibly be helpful?”

 

“Yeah.” The archer mutters, inspecting the tip of an arrow pulled from a car door. “If you pull of the stingers, they die instantly. Also, purple is my favorite color.”

 

“How is the second part helpful?”

 

“Tony.  _ Babe. _ It’s for when you make me a new suit.” He says innocently, listening to the sounds of the battle through the com in his ears as he goes around the empty street and carefully picks up arrows. His chest aches from hitting the ground rather hard at one point, but it’s bruises, not broken ribs that make him gasp out in pain as he bends over to pull another shaft out of some alien much.

 

“Why am I-”

 

“ _ Because this one is so fucking revolting I’ll never wear it again!!! _ ” He screams, and then immediately curses himself, as a the sound draws the attentions of several bugs from the sky who come swooping down.

 

His hands quickly start shoving arrows back into his quiver, while his feet propel him across the scarred street. Fingers slips to the controls on his bow as he slides to his knees behind a car, twisting with an explosive arrow notched between two mixed metal tipped arrow heads. He comes up on one knees, waits a second to confirm trajectory of the ladybug-wasp things, and shoots. The explosive arrow kills ones, and sets the other’s wings on fire, sending it spiraling into the side of a small diner. The steel lookalike arrows are just as fatal, going straight through the eye of two separate bugs, and hitting their brains with ease.

 

“I’m out.” The archer sighs when he goes to reload and finds no feathers brushing his fingers. He turns his back to the most recent carnage and looks to the sky, hoping to see the quinjet appearing majestically in the sky. Instead, he gets a great view of Tony getting smashed into the Town Hall. Natasha starts to make some reply (probably a snarky one) which is good because Barton hasn’t heard her voice in a while (and it’s not that he was worried so much as...well when Natasha isn’t talking it means she’s busy too)when something shift behind him.

 

_ ‘Oh.’ _ He thinks.  _ ‘You idiot.’ _

 

He left one of them alive. The one who's wings were incinerated is now barrelling at full ramming speed, right out of the diner and straight into the unsuspecting marksman.

 

Yeah, the fun part about these things, besides all the obvious features, is that they attack like bulls - by getting as much speed as they can, and ramming straight into their victim.

 

Clint actually manages to swear - a loud, almost screaming  _ ‘SHIT’  _ before it hits him. And my, my, how weird it is to get the experience of being hit by car without actually having one hit you. He’s thrown into the air, twisting with the impact as the bumble bee from hell crunches into the nearest building. 

 

Lucky for him, he doesn’t smack straight into the same brick wall.

 

Unlucky for him, that’s because he’s halted by a metal light post.

 

He’s sideways when he hits it, so his head and manly parts are spared. Unfortunately, this means his lower chest and midsection make full contact with the metal structure, and the stop is so sudden his arms hit his legs as they swing towards each other. Then gravity catches up and he falls a solid seven feet to the ground, landing flat on his back.

 

The battle halts. Or rather, it does for Clint, who is staring up at the sky without really seeing it. What was bruised ribs are now broken, and probably severely displaced. He’ll guess he has internal bleeding too, but all thought is currently being directed to the way he  _ can’t fucking breath _ and  _ oh my god this hurts worse than the first time Nat kicked me in the stomach when we were still trying to kill each other. _

 

Speaking of Romanoff, it could have been two seconds or twenty minutes later (he might have blacked out at some point) when her voice flits through his brain.

 

“Barton, you better answer her before she bombs the town square just to go check on you.”

  
  


_ ‘We’re sorry, but the feature you are requesting is currently unavailable’ _ . His brain snarks to itself, because talking is not a thing that can be done right now. ‘ _ Please try again later.’ _ The ability to answer is taken from him, his vision going blurry with pain and head aching with lack of oxygen.

 

It takes two minutes and twenty seven seconds before his diaphragm manages to attempt its job once more. He counts as he lies there on the cracked pavement, struggling to stay calm as his body fights against itself. Two and half minutes after loosing air, he gets it back.

 

It’s a sharp whistle as his lungs expand, and that’s all he manages for a while, eyes closed and arms splayed while his muscles struggle to operate against the pain wrapping around his chest and abdomen like a vice. Eventually the whistle turns to a wheeze, one that gets progressively louder and stronger, until Clint can open his eyes and focus on ways to make himself less vulnerable without risking puncturing a lung. 

 

And when he finally gets enough air to speak, the only thing he can think to say is:

 

“It’s been more than twenty minutes.” 

 

…

 

“Is that all of them? Barton?”

 

“Still here Stark. You don’t get out of making a new suit that easily.” Hawkeye gasps into the com, then winces in pain and lets out a low groan. “My ability to breath isn’t here anymore though. Do you think it would be possible to wait for the star spangled spandex to come back with the jet? Because I don’t feel like passing out in your arms.”

 

There’s a sharp gasp from the billionaire as he lands next to the archer, exaggerated hurt. “Oh but Clint. You’d make the perfect damsel in distress.”

 

The injured man glares at the sticky, bug gut covered metal suit and narrows his eyes.

 

“Make that joke again, and you’ll wake up to a different insect in your bed every night for the next year.”

 

The helmet retracts, and a fake horrified Tony Stark stares back, but there's enough concern in his expression that lets Clint know he’s at least considering the possibility of it not being an empty threat.

 

“You wouldn’t.”

 

“Oh, but he has.” Romanoff drops from the sky along with Falcon. “And he will. How are you standing?”

 

“Ah. That’s a good question. See, I wanted to alleviate -  _ ow  _ \- pressure from my-”

 

“I know  _ why  _ you’re standing.” She frowns, taking in the short gasps of breath and feverish complexion of her friend. “I want to know  _ how _ . You have multiple broken ribs and a bruised everything. Sit on the ground before you pass out would you?”

 

“Look - ow,  _ fuck _ \- I would - really, I -” His words are punctuated by gasps, and every shift of movement makes him wince, the arm wrapped around his midsection doing nothing to help. “I would, its...just I don’t think...I’ll be able to stand...again. Fucking hell.” 

 

Natasha stares at him like he just told her the world was flat.

 

“Right.” She says, glaring. “Because it’s not like the rest of us would help you or anything, nono, that’s too much work.”

 

Clint frowns. “Are you being seri-”

 

“Sit your ass on the ground before she makes you Barton.” Sam orders, standing arms across his chest with mechanical wings retracted. Hawkeye raises an eyebrow but drops his bow nonetheless, gripping Natasha’s arm and letting her help him to the ground. With a low groan, Clint relaxes against the car once more, feet splayed out in front of him and breathing heavy. Or, as heavy as he can without puncturing anything. He hopes, because as someone who’s had a rib poke a hole in his lungs before, it’s not like you know the exact moment it happens. It just gets really hard to breath.

 

“You sure you alright man?” Sam asks, an eyebrow raised as Nat loosens his uniform to make breathing a tad less restricted.

 

“Oh yeeeaahhhh.” He breathes, eyes closed as Romanoff starts pushing against his chest in different spots. “I’m doing just fine-  _ ah!” _

 

“Oh shut up.” The widow mutters, but moves her hands more carefully than before. When she’s done, or even before, since Clint’s wheezing again, and she’s just poking around his stomach when she turns her head to look at Stark.

 

“How long till they’re back.” Barton opens his eyes at the tiny change of inflection in his closest friends voice. Tony’s helmet is back, but the faceplate is up, showing the worry on his face.

 

“I don’t know. No ones responded.” At that, Sam, who was gazing around at the wreckage with half interest, snaps his gaze to the billionaire.

 

“No one? How’s that possible?”

 

“They aren’t dead are they?” Clint wines. “Because would just be embarrassing on their part. All the mortal humans live and the super power god mutant people get eaten by the killer bumble bees.”

 

“No, they aren’t. I’m getting no return signal from any of their coms.”

 

“Meaning?”

 

“Something’s blocking them, is all.” Barton notices the slight relief on Natasha’s face about the same time he realizes it really is getting hard to breath. 

 

“Nat.” He whispers, because he doesn’t want to waste anymore air on adding volume to his voice. She notices instantly.

 

“We need to go.” She barks to Tony, who’s openly worried now and Sam who’s looking more agitated by the second, drops his arms and steps forward. 

 

“How? I can’t carry him - well I could but he explicitly said not to and I really don’t want to be on his shit list-”

 

“ _ He _ is still right here.” Hawkeye gasps.

 

“Yeah shut up you aren’t apart of this.” Tony snaps, and Clint flops a hand around, rolling his eyes. He knows Tony is only being snippy because Barton is sitting on the ground bleeding internally and struggling to breath, and also because he can’t get in touch with the rest of team. Tony Stark doesn’t do well with things he can’t fix, and Clint being injured while they have no quick way of getting him medical help (ignoring the fact that he knows Tony has come to care about the team more than he’d like to admit, and that the team as one is struggling to come to terms with those things called ‘emotions’) is enough to make Stark panic.

 

Which is funny, since Clint’s the one who’s started shaking from lack of oxygen, and he’s probably the most calm out of all them.

 

“No really,” He tries as the others argue. “I’m down with anyway of getting me to not be dying.”

 

“ _ You’re not dying!” _ The three of them all snap at the same time. 

 

“Sorta feels like it.” He wheezes, feeling his chest tighten with every struggled breath.

 

“We need to-”

 

“Guys!” Three heads whip around at The Falcons call, albeit Clint actually takes a few seconds to register the urgency in his voice and turn his gaze back up the street.

 

“Shit.” He slurs, blurring vision still able to give him a nice visual of a whole new squadron of killer bugs flying around a corner to start shooting full speed at the group. Sam extends his wings once more, but it’s out of pure defense, not any motivation to attack. Everyone’s exhausted, and the flyers were no exception. Stark dropped his face plate despite it his own bruises and walked to stand in front of Black Widow and Hawkeye, who's now struggling to stand. 

 

“Get him out of here. We’ll give you some time.” The metallized voice of Iron Man rings out, slightly muffled by the buzzing wings of the advancing aliens. Romanoff nods, bending down and gripping underneath her friends arms, dragging him the rest of the way to his feet. Clint stands with a sharp breath, squeezing his eyes shut in pain. He hears the whine of Tony's repulsors powering up, and opens his eyes as Nat pushes his bow into his hands. 

 

She looks at him, serious and determined, silently asking a thousand questions at once. Clint nods.

 

They run right as the bugs reach Tony and Sam. Or rather, Natasha jogs, and Barton stumbles with his bow in one hand and Natashas arm in the other. She pulls him forward, knife in hand as she looks around wildly, looking for anything that could become a threat. Clint, for all the good that standing did him, is barely holding his own as he struggles to make his lead feet move. He’s sweating and wheezing and choking on breath but that wonderful stubbornness that let him argue with the director of shield for two years straight over having a family is coming in handy, in more ways than one. 

 

The town is small. They’ve reached a back street in relatively little time, and are aiming for the woods by the side of the road. They would be safe for at least some time, as the woods are old, and the trees thickly grouped together. The bugs wouldn’t be able to see them through the foliage and they wouldn’t be able to get very far ramming into tree trunks that are two feet deep.

 

They’re close and Clint is very close to blacking out from the pain and lack of oxygen, when there’s a massive explosion behind them that sends him to his knees with a cry that he can’t quite contain in time.

 

“We’re out of time!” Someone yells - someone who sound distinctly male and not Natasha - and then his hands and knees are no longer bleeding scrapped on the pavement, and his sight was filled with the rapidly shrinking street and a Russian spy sprinting towards the the trees. Theres arms encircling his chest, keeping him from falling as Falcon dips quickly to follow the Widow. He pulls up fast right before he enters, slowly rapidly and folding his wings. Iron Man flies past, thrusters sputtering enough that he hits a tree to stop.

 

Fortunately for Clint, despite the rapid push pull of change in altitude and the vice like grip to his chest, his brain refuses to let him pass out, and he manages to stumble the last few feet into the trees before his legs give out completely.

 

Or, maybe that’s rather  _ un _ fortunate, given the agony that’s wrapped around his torso and refusing to let go.

 

Things get fuzzy for the archer as his knees give out. There’s muffled shouting around him, a few pops and booms beyond that, but it’s all very distant from the man as he’s laid on the ground. Somebodys trying to talk directly to him - now  _ that’s _ Natasha - coaching him through his breathing, trying to get him to take more than a miniscule gasp of air.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to breath, it’s just that he  _ can’t. _ The run from the aliens and the following impromptu flight with Falcon must’ve exasperated whatever was going on in his chest. His vision is nonexistent at worst and blurry beyond recognition at best, and it’s all becoming much too far away for the archer to be comfortable with.

 

He tries to do something, to somehow alert the people around him that he’s in trouble, but his brain is too muddles and his limbs feel like lead and nothings  _ working- _

 

There’s a sudden  _ whoosh _ , and then the blackness recedes, both from his mind and from his vision, and slowly, painfully, oxygen trickles back into his system. It’s not like a giant heave of air (he still has broken ribs and things are bleeding inside of him) or a dramatic gasp as he sits up, but the feeling is more of a relieving of pressure, and then his lungs can expand.

 

“You back with us there, Legolas?” Clint shuts his eyes and flips Tony the bird. He’d open his mouth to say something snarky, except he can breath again, and he didn’t really appreciate how amazing that was until now so he’s focused on that.

 

“That’s a yes.” Sam’s voice is tiny, coming through the comm unit still in his ear. There’s sudden gust of wind that follows it, and then the sound of boots hitting the ground that indicate the man reappearance on the ground. He had gone to try and do a little recon, and found the latest swarm of bugs was actually containing themselves to the little town, less interested in the humans now that they weren’t attacking them and weren’t accessible. 

 

Unfortunately, his wings were damaged, and the flight he just took would be the last until Tony could fix them.

 

“What’d you do t’ me?” Clint slurs,flicking his eyes open to slits and wincing as his tries to shift into another position that might alleviate the pain. Romanoff appears in his line of sight, not looking at his face but instead focused on his chest where there's a thing sticking out that wasn’t there before and looks distinctly like the shaft of one of his arrows.

 

“I poked a hole in your chest wall to let out the air that was making it hard to breath.” 

 

“Ah.”

 

“Yeah, don’t go moving around cowboy, you’re still bleeding internally and this is like trying to bail out the titanic with a teaspoon. I bought you some time, but we need the rest of the team to move their asses-” She’s cut off by the loud whine of engines, and the quinjet zips right over the trees towards the town.

 

“Speak of the devil…” Sam mutters while Barton does his best to keep his breathing shallow and calm, slamming down the residual panic with a sledgehammer.  _ ‘The team is here’ _ He told himself. ‘ _ You’ll be fine. You can go home.’ _

 

“Stark are the comms back up?” Tony shakes his head, looking puzzled. 

 

“No, but they should be. They’re in close enough range and we can still use ours.”

 

“Well, they can’t land here, that’s for sure, and I don’t feel like trying to move ‘Little Miss Make-Everything-difficult’ over here.”

 

“Thanks Nat.”

 

“Shut up invalid, Laura’s going to kill me this time.”

 

“Alright first of all-” Clint starts, fully aware of his declining health but refusing to let his pride be bruised anymore. All three of his friends turn glares on him that promise a strong screaming at when he’s not currently dying, and the archer grumbles under his breath but stops his reply.

 

An achingly familiar voice calls through the trees, and then Steve is arriving from the ground and Vision floating down from above the tree line.

 

“It’s about time.” Falcon snarks at the Captain, who merely offers a small smile at seeing his close friend in one piece. 

 

“Yeah, we found the source of these things, had some trouble sending them back.” Steve peers around Sam to gaze at the rest of his team. He nods at Stark before finding the other two on the ground. 

 

“That looks pretty.” He says, raising an eyebrow at Barton’s obvious ailment.

 

“Jesus christ, I was rammed into a foot thick metal pole by a mutant bubble bee with more snot issues than a two year old with a cold, I am  _ allowed  _ to look like shit.” Clint wheezes in response, taking small comfort in the short bark of laughter it earns from Tony. Hearing anyone talk back to Cap is one of Stark's favorite pastimes, because of the reaction it gets from their leader.

 

Steve, for his part, just takes it in stride, rolling his eyes before glancing at Widow.

 

“He’ll be okay if we get him back to the compound, but we can’t just throw him over someone's shoulder and walk him out of these trees.” She answers the unasked question, still inspecting the makeshift decompression kit in Clint’s side.

 

“I could walk?” Bartons asks, attempting to be playful but falling short as his voice has started to get back the weak, breathless manner it had before.

 

“Sure, sure.” Tony says, standing next to Steve with an identical expressions of ‘ _ are you fucking dumb’. _ It’s opportunity for such a perfect comment about the two being a couple and Clint misses it because he can’t really catch his breath enough to say it and  _ damn it _ that would have been  _ great _ . “Except I have heart problems and old man spangles here is ninety years old, I really don’t think Doctor Cho needs to have a medbay full of patients because you give us a heart attack.  _ Again _ .”

 

“If I may.” Vision speaks, calm and quiet as always, JARVIS’s soft tones flitting through the humanoids voice. “I believe Wanda may be off more assistance in this situation than any of us.”

 

Natasha tilts her head, look up at Captain America. “She could levitate him no problem. She’s been working on it.”

 

“Speaking of, where is she?” Sam asks, still glancing up at the sky every few moments like he’s expecting another attack. Steve sighs.

 

“Those...alien things-”

 

“Mutant bumble bees.” Tonys interjects, earning a half hearted glare from the blond haired man.

 

“-mutant bumble bees, whatever, are actually a form of live stock. Some trader was supposed to make a delivery, and punched in a wrong number when imputing his interplanetary coordinates. Or that’s what Vision got from the guy when he came to pick them up. Wanda is helping him corral them back into the portal, and the Rancher is showing his apologeticness by using his other...uh,  _ creations _ to rebuild the town. They fixed what damage they caused in Boston in less than an hour.”

 

“How was that by the way?  _ Ow _ , Nat, stop hitting me.”

 

“Then stop talking.” The Black Widow responds. “I didn’t have a needle to do this normally, and you’re still bleeding internally. I didn’t fix the part of your lungs that’s leaking air dumbass, so considering the amount of pain I know you’re in, it would be best of you’d shut up.”

 

Of course, her saying that has Clint focusing on the raging fire that is most of his upper body, and he grits his teeth as it seems to intensify with his fading adrenaline. Vision flies off without much of a word, while Steve recounts how the battle went on the east coast.

 

“From the looks of it you had more here than we did.” He finishes, having already noted that they knew from Banner (who had no need to let the other guy out) that instead of being absent from them, communication to the rest of the team was being blocked, and it was only when the intergalactic space farmer told them the order was split unevenly between two places that they felt the urgency to rendezvous as quickly as possible with the others.

 

“Definitely did.” An accented voice flows smooth and sharp across the woods. Clint smirks as the Scarlet Witch drops down next to him.

 

“The hell did you get yourself into now, birdbrain.” 

 

“You’ve been...hanging around tony...too much.” The injured man wheezes and her face morphs into one of concentration.

 

“What did I  _ just  _ say about talking?!” Natasha yells at him, and for a brief second Clint considers the similarities between her and his mother.

 

“Is the jet close?” Wanda asks right before Hawkeye’s comforting pressure of ground underneath him disappears with a swear or two.

 

“No, but I’ll set it down right outside the woods.” Natasha nods, her feet keeping her right next to the floating archer as Miss Maximoff starts to slowly walk back towards the road. Steve and Sam each grab an arm of the Iron Man suit, and the three lift upwards and disappear above the trees.

 

They make it two minutes in silence before Clint opens his mouth again.

 

“This is stupid-”

 

“It that you  _ talking?! _ ” 

 

….

 

The surgery was successful in repairing the hole in his lungs as well as the multiple ruptured blood vessels in Clint’s abdomen. It took hours, draining fluid from his abdominal cavity and setting ribs, all while fighting to keep the archers O2 levels in a healthy range.

 

Doctor Cho was hell of a talent, that for sure, but once the surgery was over, and the worried pacing of the team was done, even she couldn’t make Barton heal faster. Which meant the archer was left to mope around the Avengers Compound, watching with a general anger as his team went on missions without him.

 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been hurt because of his own lack of awareness, but that just meant his frustration could only be directed at himself, and that trying to force a faster recovery would only slow his progress. 

 

It was however, his first time that he had to watch his team (those incredibly smart yet entirely  _ stupid  _ group of people that were quickly worming their way onto his list of people who “ _ can never die ever _ ”) do things without him. No one coddled him, thank god, and no one ever sent him pitying looks when he visible worked up the effort to stand up or commented on how he’d groan in pain whenever slowly lowering himself into a chair. He did his physical therapy religiously and with the most effort he could.

 

The problem of boredom only started a few weeks after the surgery, when he was healed enough that the PT didn’t make him want to sleep all day and he was off the drugs that made him so spacey he’d have to check if he was drooling whenever he watched TV. The Avengers still had jobs to do, which left Clint with a lot of time on his hands, and not much to occupy it with.

 

Which meant he’d rewatched every Star Trek movie, new and old, then every Star Wars movie, then read conspiracy theories on both. He’d updated his contacts, roamed the dark web, checked in with Fury (who technically didn’t exist anymore but still picked up the phone) and face timed his family a bunch.

 

Yet Clint Barton was still bored, and seeing as his ribs still said a resounding  _ ‘NOPE _ !’ whenever he tried to pull the string back on his bow, there wasn’t much else he could do.

 

The Hawk is also a centrally active person. Which meant only so much sitting around watching movies could be done before something inherently more stupid was going to occur.

 

He’d taken to cleaning.

 

Tony had a staff that he called the ‘power team’ because whenever theyd be away on missions, or the whole team would be out in a training exercise, they’d come in and in as little as two hours have every where - bedrooms, kitchen, TV room, gym, you name it - cleaned and shining by the time they got back. They even did the  _ windows _ .

 

But it was something to  _ do  _ god damn it.

 

So when the team left one day, and he spent his obligatory five minutes working on just standing up, the archer found paper towels, cleaner and broom, and moved faster than a teenager who heard his parents in the driveway directly after realizing they hadn’t done the chores.

 

He’d cleaned his room, then the den, and even had time for the kitchen before they came back, and when Sam waltzed into the kitchen to make dinner, Clint sat at one of the stools that sat next to the island, fiddling unsuspiciously with his phone.

 

‘ _ I just cleaned and organized the kitchen.’  _ He texts Tony, who was done cleaning up (apparently this episode of intergalactic aliens had involved mud) and was hosing down the suit.

 

‘ _ I hope you wore you life alert necklace and some non slip shoes.’  _ Comes the reply almost instantly. Barton flicks his gaze up to wear the flier is washing his hands.

 

_ ‘And Sam’s about to cook dinner.’ _ Clint pauses, then sends another text.

 

_ ‘Twenty bucks says he has a mental breakdown.’ _

 

_ ‘Too easy.’  _ Tony responds.

 

_ ‘First cabinet in?”  _

 

_ ‘Nah, I give him at least two.’ _

 

_ ‘Bet.’ _

 

_ ‘Done, feather head. I gotta watch this tho.’  _ Sure enough, Stark skids into the kitchen right as Sam throws some Marvin Gaye song on, and bends down to open a random cabinet.

 

Twenty minutes later Clint is twenty bucks richer, and him and Tony are still laughing as Sam grumbles while chopping vegetables.

 

“See if I ever cook you breakfast again!” He yells when Clint just about falls off his chair while clutching his midsection. Funny, yes it was, but the tears in his eyes are only half from laughing so hard.

 

The other half is the onions Sam is mincing. Or that’s what he’ll tell them anyway.

 

“What?! Aw, c’mon Sam, I was doing you a favor!”

 

“How am I supposed to find anything in this mess now?” 

 

“I was bored alright?! You sit around here for weeks and not be able to do anything productive and let me know how much fun it is.” Tony laughs as Sam glares. “Besides you still owe me breakfast from when the dreaded bumble bugs attacked.”

 

“Yeah, be nice to Clint.” Stark pipes up, smirking into his coffee cup. “He’s  _ nesting _ .”

 

Sam barks out a laugh and Clint throws the newspaper at him (not that they have one because Steve reads it, but because Tony does, and by default of it lying around that means the rest of the Avengers do). Sam’s anger is broken either way, and he finished the veggies with gruff words of advice.

 

“Just stay away from my kitchen next time.” He turns and drops the various plants into a hot pan right as Steve walks in.The captain ducks under the sport section thrown as his head by Tony, but bends to pick them up as he opens the mini fridge, choosing his desired drink, then reaching for the cabinet that holds the glasses.

 

Caps eyes just about pop out of his skull right about the time Tony clamps a hand over his mouth to keep from giving them away with his laughter.

 

“Woah, Sam you organized?? This is great!” He says, all naive boy scout honor and all. Sam freezes right as Barton and Stark jump off their stools. Well, Tony jumps, Barton just slides, still in pain and stiff and tired, but it doesn’t stop the sharp guffaw of laughter from surging out of his mouth, and it only makes it all the better that he can hear Sam yelling profanity at them from all the way across the compound.

 

And if later, when Him, Tony and Natasha are driving back from getting takeout, does a little traitorous part admits that sometimes being injured has its perks (like listening to Tony and Nat belt out Bohemian Rhapsody in the back of the Miata) then no one has to know about it.


End file.
